TNA Impact spoilers 10/11/11

November 6, 2011
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After attending the first of the Impact tapings in Huntsville back in August, I decided to see how TNA was progressing in their live venues and take in the tapings in Macon, Georgia on Wednesday night. This is the rundown for the second episode of Impact taped at these shows. Don’t miss the results of the first show either

Anyways, after talking about how the approximately 2,500 fans had been fairly quiet throughout the first show of the night, they were more into the show for the second taping. They appeared to tape the segments for the second show in a non-linear order, so I’ll just report them as they went out live.

Second Taping – 11/10 SPOILERS

– The first action of the second taping for the episode leading to Turning Point was The Pope’s return to TV against Crimson.

(1) Crimson beat “The Pope” D’Angelo Dinero. Nice to see Pope back, but this fairly brief (3-4 minutes) match was about putting Crimson over against a semi-credible foe before facing Matt Morgan at Turning Point. Pope got some offense in, but the match ended as he went for a sledgehammer off the second rope and Crimson caught him and hit his Sky High powerbomb finisher.

– Up next was Gunner taking on Garrett Bischoff. Gunner got a little bit of a cheer when they said he was from Atlanta, Georgia. Despite punching his did earlier, Garrett got little response from the fans, who were too busy wooooing at Ric Flair and yelling at Eric Bischoff at ringside.

(2) Garrett Bischoff beat Gunner via DQ. After some stalling, Garrett surprised everyone by hitting two arm drags and what looked like a hip toss on Gunner. Apparently he has been training. Anyways, Gunner was getting up with his serious face on when an angry Flair charged the ring and jumped the ref, who promptly threw the match out. This left Immortal angry that they couldn’t get their hands on Garrett, who mocked them from the stage. Flair hilariously lectured Gunner for screwing up when he was the one who caused the ref to throw the match out.

– The third match was X Division action between Zema Ion and Jesse Sorensen. Good to see Ion back on television.

(3) Jesse Sorensen beat Zema Ion. It was a fairly brief match that saw Ion get a lot of offense, but after a missed 450 splash, Sorensen got the victory. It seems to be a Sorensen theme: he gets beat down for most of the match, but doesn’t really make a comeback before winning. Not exactly the best way to make a guy look credible (see: Crimson) if you’re winning on what looks like luck and flukes. That led to Kid Kash coming out and offering him a spot in a three-way dance for the X Division title, which Sorensen accepted. The two of them fought briefly before Austin Aries ran out and hit Jesse with the title and the heels stood tall after a beat down.

The Knockouts Tag Titles were on the line for the second straight show, as new champs Gail and Madison (with Karen & Traci at ringside) defended against Velvet Sky and Mickie James.

(4) KO tag champions Gail Kim & Madison Rayne beat KO champion Velvet Sky & Mickie James. This was a little shorter than the first KO tag match of the night and the champs retained after Gail hit her finisher on Velvet for the pinfall.

– After that, what I assume will be the opening segment for the show was filmed, as Bobby Roode came out to the biggest heat of the night from the crowd. He insulted Macon, the South, and James Storm, and said that it was a new era of “me-first” wrestling. He said that it should have been him who won the belt from Angle in the first place.

As he was talking, James Storm came out on the stage without music and four security guards were trying to get him to go to the back. Storm snapped and threw the security guys aside (including one poor dude who got flipped onto a cameraman and then fell off the ramp) and jumped Roode in the ring. Storm looked like a bad man during this bit and the lack of music really added to it. They brawled until D’Lo and company came out to break things up and Roode bailed up the ramp.

But, the segment wasn’t over, as the Stinger came out for the first time all night to a big pop and he booked a title re-match for the Main Event of the show. Roode threw a tantrum at the announcement.

– Up next was the Jersey Shore match. Ronnie couldn’t even be bothered to wear anything remotely resembling wrestling gear despite probably being overpaid to appear at a wrestling show, as he came out in jeans.

(5) Ronnie & Eric Young beat Robbie E. & Rob Terry. The obvious outcome occurred with EY carrying most of the action (less than five minutes) and then Ronnie hit a Snooki splash for the pin on Robbie E.

– The sixth match taped (though I’m not sure one of the first ones won’t be on Xplosion) was Daniels versus A. J. Styles.

(6) A.J. Styles beat Daniels. They had a nice back and forth contest for 6-7 minutes before Daniels pulled a screwdriver out from under the ring. He got back in behind Styles while A.J. was trying to stand, but Rob Van Dam ran down to the ring to pull the screwdriver out of Daniels’s hand. This allowed A.J. to take the advantage of a distracted Daniels and hit the Styles Clash for the victory. It looks like this feud is expanding with RVD’s involvement.

– The next match was the longest that was taped for the second Impact episode: a six-man tag match between Jarrett, Bully Ray, and Scott Steiner against Mr. Anderson, Jeff Hardy, and a mystery partner. There was a lull while Immortal taunted Hardy and Anderson that they didn’t have a third teammate, but then Abyss came out to join them.

(7) Jeff Hardy & Mr. Anderson & Abyss beat Immortal (Jeff Jarrett & Bully Ray & Scott Steiner) in a six-man tag match. This match was probably about 8-9 minutes and was quite good. It should be good on TV if they don’t edit any time out and keep it in its entirety. The end came after a flurry of finishing moves culminating when Scott Steiner attempted to put Hardy into the Steiner Recliner, but Abyss came back in to make the save and hit the Black Hole Slam for the win.

– Before the final match, J.B. came out to hype the fans one more time and do the usual shtick of “We love you, (insert town) and we’ll be back soon! Maybe we’ll even bring a Pay-Per-View to (insert town)!” At that point, (insert town) goes nuts and J.B. smiles like a Cheshire cat. Well played, J.B.

But, right after he finished, he said that he had received some news about something going on in the back and threw to a video on the screen. After a lag to allow the commentators to talk for the broadcast, a video was shown of a bloodied James Storm getting treatment in the back. Sting came in concerned and asked Storm who did it. Storm didn’t know and didn’t answer Sting when he asked what city they were currently in. Storm yelled he was fine and wanted the match.

So, the title match was on. Roode came out first to jeers and boos before Storm’s music played. But, the Dixietron screen didn’t lift and his song stopped. Roode was asking where he was in the ring. After a moment, it started again and the screen lifted for a staggered and bloodied Storm to make his way down the ramp.

(8) TNA World Hvt. champion Robert Roode beat James Storm to retain the TNA World Title. At ringside, he appeared to get a burst of energy and dominated Roode for about 30-45 seconds and threw him into the corner. But, as he did that, he seemed to lose his energy and slowly faded down onto the canvas and laid still. The ref checked on Storm and even Roode sold concern. The doctor came down to ringside while Styles and Kazarian stood on the ramp watching with worry as well. My friend, Shane, who had the radio broadcast of the announce team, said that they were saying he had passed out from ‘blood loss.’ Eventually, Storm got up with the help of the ref and Roode. But, Roode then realized that the match hadn’t been technically thrown out by the ref, so he slammed Storm to the mat and got a reluctant pin to retain. Roode then bolted the ring before Kaz and A.J. could get their hands on him.

Afterward, Roode made his way back up the ramp with the belt. Sting came out and glared at him as he went to check on Storm in the ring. As Roode stood on the stage, A.J. grabbed the microphone and told Roode he was sick of his actions and wanted him in the ring. Sting agreed with him and made Roode vs. Styles for the World Heavyweight Championship as the Main Event at Turning Point and that’s how the show ended.

BAX REAX: Well, there’s no sense crying over spilled milk, as this was a good follow-up now that they’ve turned Roode heel. The immediate re-match made sense from Sting and the attack angle means that the can revisit Storm-Roode for the belt in a month or two. The added mystery of who attacked Storm will probably be played out over the next month on Impact (I say probably because TNA might decide to pay it off right away, as usual, instead of giving anything time to build and breathe) and this will get A.J. back involved in the championship picture. The fall-out of Fortune fracturing will certainly be a centerpiece going forward.

But, there were definitely some other aspects of this show worth talking about. First the good: The six-man tag match was a very good TV match, Daniels-Styles was enjoyable, and RVD’s inclusion might finally put him in position to start putting together strong matches on a consistent basis. I also am mildly intrigued to see if Garrett Bischoff can actually wrestle, even with the obvious nepotism concerns.

But, there were a few things that bothered me. First of all, why would Austin Aries agree to a three-way title defense in the X Division? Also, what has Kid Kash done to deserve a title shot? He’s lost to Sorensen pretty frequently. While that should be a strong match at Turning Point, I don’t get the logic.

I’m also VERY interested to see how this show gets edited down for TV, because eight matches and two talking segments is a lot to shoehorn into one show, especially a PPV lead-in show. I’d be thrilled if they went wrestling-heavy throughout and used the Storm attack storyline as one of the only backstage pieces, but there are only eight quarter-hours in a show and fitting eight matches in won’t be easy. Some matches will probably end up on Xplosion.

Overall, the Macon tapings were probably the best taping of the three in terms of show quality, if we’re overlooking the incredibly-rushed Roode heel turn. The TV shows should be solid leading into Turning Point. But, the crowd was unfortunately the worst of the three road tapings, so the visuals might not be the same as the first two outings.

Either way, Impact needs to stay on the road every month starting next year. They’ve drawn large-enough crowds that they have to be doing well on the ledger and the atmosphere and touring can only help business. My humble suggestion: film Impact when they go through Europe in January. The largest crowd to ever see a TNA show was in London two years ago, so drawing an audience around 10,000 people to an Impact taping is not beyond the realm of possibility.